Perpetual Ruminations

September Camping; Second Campout of The Year

It's been way too long since I've added an entry! But, I have been adding some poetry to my other book, "Pages of Pint-Sized Poetry"  so there's that.

I've been wanting to write a bit about our second camping trip this season and now seems like a good time. Our first campout was in South Dakota and worked out well, but our last one was just a short distance from home, in a State Park, but with no modern amenities. What? You know, like Gilligan's Island! Maybe not that bad, but we had no electricity, no water hook-up, no showers, and only a vault toilet.

Not that we mind camping like this. We only recently stopped using a tent and have upgraded to a mobile tent (pop-up camper). We can carry ten gallons of fresh water, we have a three-way refrigerator that's kind of small, but it does the trick, and it has a gas water heater. It also has a gas furnace that we can run off of the battery, but it does draw the battery down rather quickly. Let's say between the furnace and the fridge we would likely drain the battery in about a day, but with the fridge on gas, the furnace will work about two days.

Thankfully, it was pleasant weather, but it did get cold at night and we did run the furnace a bit. I also packed along another deep-cycle battery and we purchased a small, quiet, and very portable generator for this type of camping, so everything was fine; we ran the generator for about a half-hour the first night only because we needed AC current to inflate the air mattresses.

For remote camping, it was a bit crowded. We had reserved two spots just because we like to have quiet and room when we camp. But shortly after we arrived a group moved into the remaining campsites to our south. A group of young women, teenagers, to be precise, out camping with their grandmother. They were tenting, and luckily we had a hammer along because the ground was hard and they were having a rough time driving stakes down.

All in all, they were pretty quiet, didn't bother us, and kept to their sites. Except at night, being in a mobile tent, it doesn't block sound and they laughed and giggled through the night.

Late Saturday afternoon, we had started a nice campfire in the second site and were just getting ready to start our dinner cooking over it when a car pulled up and a young guy and lady got out. He said we were at his campsite and pulled out his phone to show us. We informed him that we had reserved it and my wife went to get her phone to show him.

To keep it short, it turned out that we indeed had reserved that site, he had messed up, or the online reservation was messed up. It turned out he had reserved the site the prior weekend. They apologized for bothering us and proceeded to walk back toward their car. I stopped them just as my wife returned with her phone, explained everything to her, and asked them where they were from.

They had driven four hours to go camping! We knew that the park was full and it wouldn't be very likely they would find another spot, so I asked my wife if she was okay to let them use the second site. She agreed, and they looked like they were going to go into shock. ""Really! You'd let us camp here anyway?"

I nodded, and then added, "We even started a fire for you, all you need to do is enjoy it." They offered us thirty dollars, but since they had already paid double that for the previous weekend, I told them it wasn't necessary. He insisted, especially since we had a nice fire burning. In the end, we took twenty dollars, loaned them the hammer so they could get their tent set up, and threw in a bundle of firewood so they could keep it burning.

Everyone around us seemed to enjoy the weekend camping, and we had a good time as well, but the best night was Sunday after everyone around us packed up and left and we had the entire area to ourselves.